Zappa fails to strike a chord at Radio 3

BBC Radio 3's attempt to attract a younger audience by playing world music, jazz and Frank Zappa has failed to impress listeners, audience figures show.

Despite BBC claims that listeners liked the station's campaign to shrug off its reputation for high-brow classical music, Radio 3's audience dropped slightly from nearly two million listeners in the three months up to December to 1.9 million in the period up to the end of March.

While Radio 1 also lost listeners, down from 10.7 million to 10.3 million, Radio 2 continues to be the BBC's great airwave success story, according to the figures released by RAJAR. The station, which was named "Station of the Year" in the Sony Radio Awards last week, increased its audience slightly to 10.9 million.

Like Radio 3, it has invested in a broader range of music, with DJs such as Jonathan Ross challenging its old image as the home of easy listening. Jim Moir, Radio 2's controller, said: "I'm delighted. It confirms that our star presenters, the music we play and the programmes we broadcast are striking the right note with the audience."

Roger Wright, head of Radio 3, has tried to make it a cultural rather than purely classical music station by introducing other types of music and drama. A BBC spokesman said the station could not be compared to the more populist Classic FM, which has 6.5 million listeners.

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She said: "The audience is stable and it's a case of work in progress as the changes are still going on." Radio 1 has seen its audience slip by almost a million in the past year as it increasingly targeted listeners aged 15-24, leaving older ones to switch to Radio 2.

A spokesman said: "Over the last year the majority of our losses have been over 35s. Things have been going according to plan."